Calcutta, March 17: Do not be surprised if, a few months from now, a group of individuals knock on your door, “reminding” you of that unpaid telephone bill.
Calcutta Telephones, confronted by an arrears bill that runs up to a 10-digit figure, is ready to take a leaf out of other corporate agencies desperate to reclaim dues. The city wing of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which turned corporate a couple of years ago, is now drawing up plans to engage “recovery agencies” to crack the tough nuts –subscribers who simply refuse to pay.
“It is true that some of our subscribers owe Calcutta Telephones a huge sum of money,” said CalTel general manager (customer relations) S.K. Bhaduri. “We are now trying to determine the best method that will help us realise the arrears,” he added.
Senior Calcutta Telephones officials told The Telegraph that a decision had been taken to engage private “recovery agencies” to do the job that BSNL had failed to do.
“We are in the process of finalising the modalities for the selection of the agency,” one of them said. “We are working towards floating a tender, inviting applications from agencies willing to be our partners in this job,” he added.
The two BSNL wings in the state (Calcutta Telephones and West Bengal Telecom) together are reeling under the effect of unpaid bills to the tune of Rs 334 crore.
More than two-thirds of that figure — about Rs 225 crore – will come into the coffers of the city wing if every single errant subscriber can be made to fall in line and pay up the arrears. West Bengal Telecom has arrears adding up to Rs 109 crore from its consumers.
“These figures are huge by any standard and it is a sign of desperation that the BSNL wings are now thinking along lines similar to that of private-sector banks,” said a senior BSNL official.
But the recovery agency selected for the purpose will have to follow “a few broad guidelines” that do not curb agencies working for private-sector clients, say officials. “Being part of the government sector, we have to be more responsible and more careful,” one of them said, explaining why the task would be more difficult for an agency working for BSNL.
Besides, the legal restraints on the functioning of debt-recovery agencies – some were dragged to court with charges of being “high-handed” – would be kept in mind when the final details were worked out, officials assured.
A few months ago, the BSNL headquarters in Delhi had allowed its wings in various states to explore legal means to recover their dues. Any client with an unpaid bill of more than Rs 25,000 could be dragged to court, provided the legal expenses did not outstrip the dues, the headquarters decreed.
